REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
TO THE JOINT TASK FORCE-FULL ACCOUNTING
EXCAVATION PARTICIPANTS
JTF-FA Excavation Site
Tien Chau Village, Socialist Republic of Vietnam

11:30 A.M. (L)

THE PRESIDENT: At this spot 33 years ago this month, Captain
Lawrence Evert's F-105 was shot down. No parachute was seen, the area
was heavily defended and there was no chance for a search.

Today, I am honored to be here with Captain Evert's sons, Dan and
David, and I thank them for coming. We believe we owe them, and all
Americans like them, what they came here for -- a chance, finally, to
take their father home.

America is very proud of our Joint Task Force-Full Accounting.
These young men and women have traveled half way around the world to
bring home comrades fallen in the war that ended before many of them
were born. They spend up to 200 days a year here working to recover
remains for American families.

We are also grateful for the service of the members of the Central
Identification Labs, who help to end the anguish of not knowing.

Our nation has made a commitment that we will not rest until we've
achieved the fullest possible accounting for our lost veterans. But it
is only possible for us to fulfill our promise with the cooperation and
support of the Vietnamese government and the Vietnamese people.

I want to personally thank the people of this village, this
district and province for your kindness, for coming forward with
artifacts and information to help the search, and for working so hard
alongside our service members and citizens.

I also want to express the profound thanks of the American people
to the Vietnamese government for its support. Among other things, it
sent engineers and technicians here to help us figure out how we can dig
without destabilizing the railroad nearby.

The United States is doing what we can to repay the cooperation of
the Vietnamese and their government by doing all we can to help the
people of Vietnam find answers about their missing, as well. I brought
with me over 350,000 pages of documents that I hope will provide some of
those answers to the people of Vietnam. Whether we are American or
Vietnamese, I think we all want to know where our loved ones are buried;
I think we all want to be able to honor them and visit their grave
sites. This common endeavor we make as friends is unprecedented in all
of human history.

Once we met here as adversaries; today we work as partners. We are
committed to keep at it until we bring every possible fallen hero home.
In the process, we are committed to building a new future for the
children of Vietnam and the children of the United States, a future of
friendship and cooperation.

While working together to recover those who were lost in a long-ago
war, we reduce the chances that any of our children will know war.

Again, on behalf of the American people, I would like to thank all
the Americans who are involved in this astonishing endeavor, and all of
our Vietnamese partners, who stand in the mud and work at the screens to
try to find answers that are common to our humanity and go far beyond
our differences. I thank you. (Applause.)